Czech Miracle(s) on Ice in 2000 and 2001 (World Juniors gold)

[alko]

How was it possible, thet the Czechs won gold on World Juniors in both years?

Was Canada so weak that time?

I can think, USA wasnt on their actual level. Sweden maybe, but also their had rough times.

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[JackSlater]

Those Czech teams had a good system. Good counter attacking teams and they were probably ahead of the competition tactically. Most of the big hockey countries were in a talent lull but the Czechs weren't. From a Canadian perspective, the 2000-2002 years were really weak, as seen in the 1998-2000 drafts. USA had poor talent as well. Sweden and Finland didn't have much depth. Russia had pretty good teams in the early 2000s. In any case, it wasn't a miracle that the Czechs won those tournaments. Good teams with a good system.

 

[jj cale]

Yeah, those czech teams were far from a miracle, the Czechs were really good back then.

Strange how many people forget that around here.

 

[Czechboy]

The wins are interesting because we had better teams that didn't win anything and those 2 teams won it all... if you look at the roster's, they weren't that strong and only a few guys became NHLer's.

We were defending Olympic Champs and in the midst of 3 World Championships in a row... then, a decade later, we hit rock bottom.

2000 roster only produced a handful of NHL players and both goalies never went on to become superstars:

2000 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships rosters - Wikipedia

2001 roster had some more oomph as Klesla, Plekanec, Erat and Vrbata all went on to decent NHL careers.

2001 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships rosters - Wikipedia

If you look at the D on those 2 teams, this might be when our D wows began.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Czechs were really good around the millenium.

 

[lamini]

The wins are interesting because we had better teams that didn't win anything and those 2 teams won it all... if you look at the roster's, they weren't that strong and only a few guys became NHLer's.

Well, sometimes players that are domimant at WJC (or junior hockey in general) lack something to make it in NHL (Brendl, Yakupov, Grigorenko), while others have to change their game a lot to make it work (if I remember correctly Plekanec was really different player in WJC than later in NHL)

 

[Rob]

The Czechs were having similar success at the WHC in 99 and 2000. Looks like the entire program was riding a wave from their 1998 Olympic win.